Morning Sickness

So I'm winding my way through the Wall Street Journal this morning munching on some Shredded Wheat and fresh strawberries...sipping a cup of dark black coffee...when I turn to the Editorial page and this sentence greets me:

"An American President lands in Moscow today to negotiate an arms control treaty. "

After I got the spot-spew under control, I read on...

In pre-summit interviews, Mr. Obama also skipped over such touchy Kremlin subjects as human rights and its designs on neighboring states. "The main thing that I want to communicate to the Russian leadership and the Russian people is America's respect for Russia," he told Russian media, noting that "it remains one of the most powerful countries in the world."

The piece winds up with these bits of wisdom:

The choice to join the free world is open to Russia, too. Mr. Putin is the one who has taken that option off the table -- most recently by pulling Russia's application to join the WTO. In the Putin decade, nationalism, corruption and cronyism have flourished while Russia has missed another chance to modernize. That's not America's fault.

Any U.S. administration will have plenty of business to carry out with Russia. But an American President in Moscow needs to keep his eyes on the bigger prize in Russia and the region. And that prize is an expansion of freedom, not a new START treaty.

Sooo, what's the first headline out of the gate? On the radio driving to work, ABC breathlessly reporting a "BLOCKBUSTER" agreement between Medvedev and Obama...peace and love! Of course the on-site commentator was a little more circumspect - "a 'framework' had been agreed to on the reduction of nuclear arms." Nevertheless, this amatuer President of ours is playing right into the Soviets - err, Russians hands. Read the rest of the piece here...and an excellent background piece by David Satter...here's the subhead: "Obama doesn't need to engage the Russian leaders, he needs to deter them." Yah, right...lots a luck!